Metropolis 46
by Gildir
Summary: Clark Kent interviews Detective Aramus after the death of his partner. Set during Superman: The Movie. Rated T for emotional intensity.


**Metropolis 46**

This story takes place during _Superman: The Movie_, written by Mario Puzo and David and Leslie Newman (and Tom Mankiewicz, uncredited). The character of Brad appears in both _Superman_ and _Superman III_, written by David and Leslie Newman. I do not own any of the characters who appear in this story. Superman is a trademark of DC Comics.

**I**

"He was my partner," Aramus said simply in response to the reporter's question. "What else can I say?"

The dimly lit funeral home was filled with cops in suits, their nervous wives in dowdy dresses. The reporter shifted nervously from one foot to the other, pushing his glasses back on his nose with his middle finger. Aramus had already forgotten his name.

"I know it was kind of a clichéd question, Detective Aramus," the reporter said. "I think it's important, though, that I write something about who he was, so people remember him as more than just a --" He broke off, embarrassed.

"A statistic?" Aramus finished for him, his voice devoid of emotion. Since the moment it had happened he hadn't felt much emotion. He knew it was only a matter of time. "The second law enforcement officer killed in Metropolis this year, the city's forty-seventh murder victim since January 1st, the fiftieth fatality on railway tracks in the city in the last ten years…"

"Why don't we start by talking about how the two of you first met?" the reporter asked. "When was he assigned as your partner?"

"Five years ago," Aramus said, frowning as the mayor's wife entered. She always showed up at cop funerals. He remembered the time she had referred to Patrolman Chris Andrews – killed by a drug dealer a year ago now – as "he". Andrews' widower wasn't happy.

"What was your first impression of him?"

Aramus smiled.

"I thought he was sloppy, careless, and too eager to get promoted," he said. "And I think he thought the same about me."

Aramus paused, collecting his thoughts.

"The first time I saw Harry, he was sitting at my desk, with one of those weird hats of his lying in front of him. We had both just been reassigned, so how was he to know which desk was his? But I chewed him out good.

"We started out working on a murder case – some kid from the slums no one more senior was likely to work on. I saw what a hard worker Harry was. He would spend hours on the phone tracking down a lead. If he hadn't been a cop, he would have been a great reporter."

The newspaperman smiled.

"And he had the guts to talk to the young man's family for hours – to pick up the phone when we knew it was the kid's mom calling to scream at us for not doing more. The day they convicted the guy who did it, she hugged me, but she kissed Harry on the forehead. Wonder what she's doing now. Heard she moved away."

Soft footsteps approached. Aramus knew without looking that it was his wife.

"Darling, why don't we go home now? You should rest."

Aramus glanced at her without really seeing her. He did not feel ready to confront, or even think about, what she must be going through. The fear she usually held at bay had manifested itself far too close to home.

"Mrs. Aramus? I'm Clark Kent from the _Daily Planet_."

"How do you do, Mr. Kent?" She shook the reporter's hand, maintaining a somewhat fragile composure. "I've been enjoying your series of articles on the City Council."

"Thank you, Mrs. Aramus," Kent said. "Your husband was just telling me about his partner, but we could continue tomorrow. I could drop by the station house --"

"No, that's all right," Aramus said. "I'll take you and Mr. Kent in the car and drop you off at home. I want to continue this interview."

**II**

Kent was silent for a long, awkward moment as Aramus drove him away from his house. Mrs. Aramus had clearly been very upset as they left her, but had refused her husband's awkward offer to stay with her. Aramus broke the silence.

"You said you didn't have a car at the funeral home, Kent. Do you drive?"

"I have my license, but I don't usually drive," Kent said.

"How do you get around? Cabs?"

"Sometimes."

"Must be expensive for a reporter, every time there's a story…" Aramus leaned on the horn as a long line of cars in front of him slowly reacted to a green light. "This city makes me wish I could fly."

Kent smiled, but then grew serious again.

"Where are we going? You said you wanted to show me something."

"Almost there," Aramus said as the car started forward again.

Aramus pulled up outside an abandoned building. He and Kent got out of the car.

"Gosh, Detective, this is an insalubrious part of town," Kent said, pushing his glasses back nervously.

"Don't worry, I'm packing," Aramus said, patting the shoulder holster beneath his suit jacket.

"I was actually more concerned about your car," Kent said.

"This will only take a few minutes," Aramus said.

The front door of the building was unlocked. They walked inside. From the expression on Kent's face Aramus knew he was wondering whether their unauthorized presence constituted breaking and entering, but he said nothing.

They crossed a broad, empty, dirty room and entered a narrow corridor, their noses crinkling at the suspicious smells that assailed them.

"This is where Harry saved my life," Aramus said. Kent pulled out his pocket notepad and pen, nodding for Aramus to continue. "A perp came out of that room down there – must have come in the back way – and was going to shoot me from behind. Harry saw him. Shot the gun right out of his hand."

"Did he receive a commendation or anything?" Kent asked.

"Yeah, yeah, some medal he put in his desk drawer. It's probably still there. He didn't go around bragging about it – didn't have to. I think I must have told every cop from here to Gotham about it."

Aramus shook his head as though dazed.

"The way we used to kid each other about everything. Those hats of his, my haircuts… If he were here now, I'd start ragging him about the way he looked in the coffin."

He looked over at Kent, whose pen was still hovering above his notepad.

"I never thanked him. I didn't know how."

**III**

Aramus was driving again, driving aggressively, taking corners too fast. Kent, clinging nervously to the seat cushion with his hands, was asking about where it had happened.

"So your partner was about five hundred feet down the tunnel from the station?"

"Yeah," Aramus said, with what he realized was still an unnatural degree of composure. "He had been trailing that fat associate of Luthor's, Otis. But there was no sign of Otis afterwards. We checked the whole area. He just vanished."

"Do you suppose, then, that Luthor might have some kind of underground hideout down there?" Kent asked.

"I think it's possible. The current train station was built on top of an older one about fifty, sixty years ago. There's no record that the old station was ever demolished. Huge, elegant place, perfect for a maniac like Luthor. But the Department won't let me search down there. They say it's a wild, unsubstantiated theory."

"And it's your belief that Luthor is some sort of criminal mastermind?" Kent asked.

"Oh, yeah," Aramus said grimly. "Me and Harry had been onto him for a long time. But not everyone in the Department agreed with us. Luthor's rich. Money can buy you a lot of image and lots of people to look the other way."

He honked his horn at a slow group of pedestrians in a crosswalk.

"Well, now Luthor's killed my partner. And he's not getting away with it."

"Detective Aramus," Kent asked softly, "isn't it possible that this Otis is the one who killed your partner? After all, he's the one who's known to have been present."

"No," Aramus said forcefully as the car lurched forward again. "It was Luthor. I'd bet my life on it. That Otis wouldn't have the guts to punch a dogcatcher, let alone kill a cop."

Aramus turned his head for a moment to look at Kent. The reporter was listening intently, taking notes on his little yellow pad.

"Remember this, Kent. Luthor is very smart. He's charming and funny. People who talk to him always come away saying what a great guy he is. And I've met cops in the past who knew he was a criminal genius, but secretly admired him for it."

Aramus turned back to the road.

"But now he's a cop-killer. That's all he'll ever be now. You're a reporter, Kent. Don't let people forget that, no matter how clever and witty he might be."

"I won't forget, Detective Aramus," Kent murmured.

"Good," Aramus said. "Don't."

Aramus pulled up outside a small concrete building surrounded by parking lots and billboards. A peeling wooden sign identified it as "Murphy's Bar". Blinking neon signs for brands of beer and ale filled the windows. Traffic rumbled along a nearby overpass and sighed into the distance.

"The MPD's favorite hangout," Aramus said as they stepped out of the car. "No counting the number of late nights me and Harry spent in here, celebrating or commiserating about something."

Kent seemed distinctly uncomfortable as they entered. Aramus idly wondered how often in his life this reporter had entered a tavern, other than times when he was investigating a story. His thoughts were confirmed as they sat down at the bar.

"Ginger ale, please," Kent said to the thick-necked bartender. He turned to Aramus with an embarrassed grin. "I don't often drink alcohol," he explained.

"Maybe you're right not to," Aramus said. "Brandy, straight."

Kent looked uncomfortable again.

"Detective Aramus, I sure don't mean to interfere, but your wife is waiting at home --"

"And?" Aramus asked, more belligerently than he had intended.

"I just thought Mrs. Aramus might be unhappy if you were to return in an inebriated condition."

"Unhappy?" Aramus repeated. "Let her be unhappy. A little emotional release might do her good right now."

He paused, and then added, "It sure would do wonders for me."

Their drinks arrived. Aramus threw his back and ordered another. He began sipping the second more slowly, looking reflectively around the room.

"So many times we came in here," he said. "Sometimes I'd get here first and wait for him. I would know it was him when the door opened – I'd catch a glimpse of his hat in the mirror behind the bar, or I'd hear his footsteps."

"You recognized his footsteps?"

Aramus glared at Kent.

"You bet I recognized them, after all those times we went into bad situations together."

Kent nodded.

"And if we weren't here, we were at the station house working on a case. I'm pretty sure Harry saw more of me than my own wife did most weeks."

Aramus paused again.

"When you spend that much time with someone, you know them so well, you know how they think, how they react… I feel like _I_ was hit by that train. How can it end just like that? I keep thinking of things to say to him the next time I see him. And I know I'll never see him again. But I can't get my head around it."

The door of Murphy's opened. Aramus quickly looked around, almost as though frightened, and then turned back, angry with himself. He drained the rest of his glass at a gulp.

"Another."

After a couple of swallows, he turned to Kent, who was still nursing his ginger ale. He had put his notepad away. Aramus felt a red haze materializing behind his forehead.

"Why are you so interested in all this, anyway?" he asked. "You could be working on that City Council series my wife likes so much, talking to politicians in fancy offices. Not sitting next to a cop getting drunk in a lousy part of town."

Kent's reply seemed to come from a slight distance, even though the reporter was still sitting right next to Aramus.

"Well, gosh, Detective," Kent said, "this is about the most important story I can think of. People need to know about the people who are willing to risk their lives for the public safety."

He took a sip of ginger ale.

"I grew up in a little town in Kansas, a place called Smallville. I don't suppose you've ever heard of it, Detective Aramus?"

"No," the detective grunted.

"Well, back there, just about the biggest thing in town was our high school football team. I knew this guy called Brad, and he wasn't a particularly pleasant person. But he was the best football player in town. Lots of guys looked up to him."

Kent pushed his glasses back again.

"One Thanksgiving, Brad scored the winning touchdown in the football game. Everyone said he was Smallville's hometown hero. People were slapping him on the back all night. But what happened the next day?"

If Kent expected an answer, he wasn't getting one. Maybe it was a rhetorical question. He went on.

"We had an early frost that year, and a nine-year-old kid – one of the Lewis boys – tried to go skating on the pond. He fell through the ice. Two police officers were driving by. One of them was named John Stevens. He tried to rescue the boy and fell in too. His partner pulled the kid out, but Officer Stevens drowned."

"Damn," Aramus said.

"The whole town turned out for Officer Stevens' funeral. I saw Brad there. No one was calling him a hero that day. And my dad said, 'That's how a man should be – always willing to help others, no matter what it takes.'"

It was a long moment before Aramus spoke again, now with some difficulty. He had a vague feeling that what he was saying did not follow logically from the previous part of the conversation, but this no longer seemed important.

"One of the last things Harry said to me was, if we got Luthor, we'd both make Captain by midnight. Of course, he'd never have been promoted with his fashion sense. Those stupid hats…"

Aramus slowly raised his head to look at Kent.

"I guess you know his hat was what I found when… when…"

Kent nodded.

"One of the last things I said to him – maybe the very last, I can't remember now – was to be careful. Be careful, Harry. He just shrugged it off. Why wasn't I there? Why wasn't I there?"

And suddenly Aramus was crying. He could dimly see how uncomfortable Kent was, but he didn't care. It was a vast relief, like finally throwing up after feeling like it for hours.

"You know something, Kent?" Aramus asked some time later. He could no longer quite see whether the reporter was even there. "If there was some way I could bring Harry back to life, I would do it, even if God himself told me I shouldn't."

"I think I have some idea how you feel," Kent's voice said. It sounded very distant now.

"When I wash a kid – When I _was_ a kid! I never wash kids if I can help it – I used to wonder: What would happen if someone turned the Earth back on its axis?"

He illustrated his words by spinning his glass, first one way and then the other. It glistened as though there was water in his eyes again. The glass was all he could see now; it seemed to be at the end of a swirling tunnel of light.

"What would happen?" the distant voice asked. "I don't know. Wouldn't everyone fly off into space?"

"No, no, you don't get it! The Sun rises and sets because the Earth spins, right? That's how we tell what time it is – by the Sun."

There was silence. Perhaps the reporter didn't understand what he meant.

"So if someone spun the Earth backwards, dime – time would go backwards! Cars would drive in reverse, water would flow uphill, things that were broken would repair themselves --"

He stopped, breathing heavily, blood roaring in his ears.

"And Harry would be alive again," the distant voice said. It was kind and gentle. Aramus wanted to tell Kent he didn't need his pity, but he could not form the words.

"Would that work?" Kent asked after a pause. "I don't know if that would work. It might, though. But who could turn the world back?"

"I don't know," Aramus said through gritted teeth. It took all his effort to speak. "I would if I could. No matter what."

Suddenly Aramus' eyes were closed. He felt the wooden surface of the bar under his cheek. A puddle of brandy seemed to be located under his temple. He didn't care.

Detective Aramus slept for ten hours. He would awaken in his own bed the next morning to the sound of his wife's soft sobs. The last thing he remembered that night was someone lifting him up from the bar and helping him toward the door. He could not see whether it was the reporter. If it was, he was stronger than he looked.


End file.
